something; but poor Dick was sitting up as straight as a ramrod, under
the influence of a glance that he had taken at the face of Dab Kinzer.

"I isn't goin' back on him and Ford," he said to himself. "I'd foller
dem fellers right fru' dis yer eatin'-house."

Frank Harley seemed to be getting some information. In the country he
had lived in nearly all his life, "colored people" were as good as
anybody if they were of the right sort; and a man's skin had little to
do with the degree of respect paid him, although even there it was an
excellent thing to be "white."

As for the mulatto waiter, after a moment more of hesitation, he took
Ford's order, and walked dignifiedly away, muttering,--

"Nebber seen de like afore. Reckon I isn't g'wine to tote soup and fish
for no nigger: I'll see de boss."

That meant an appeal to the lordly and pompous but quite gentlemanly
"head waiter," a man as white as Ford Foster. A word or two to him, a
finger pointed towards the upper end of the hall, and the keen eyes of
the "man in authority" took it all in.

"Six of them,--five white and one black. Well, Gus, do they look as if
they could pay their bill before they go?"

"Yes, sah, dey does. De young gen'lman wid de bill ob fare in his han',
he's got moah cheek, an' moah tongue, an' moah lip, sah"--

"Well then, Gus, you just tramp right along. If he and the rest don't